March 2025 - A month in

 

A month in – March 2025

Greetings from Ecuador. As I write this the rain is pounding on our tin roof, which makes it almost impossible to carry on a conversation. In spite of that, it is really good to be home. 😊 (for a video clip of the rain, click here) It is amazing as I reflect on all that has happened since our February Bruce Brief. Thanks to all of you who prayed for our return to Ecuador!
 
Here are a just a few highlights from the last few weeks:

We arrived in Ecuador with all our luggage intact! (A bonus blessing, we even got seats with extra leg room on the flight!) Thank you to all who made our home assignment time a blessing and thank you for all of you who prayed for our travels.
Our first Sunday in AwaLand we enjoyed a joint service and lunch with both communities present! Pray as we consider different options to help improve interaction each Sunday.
Good friends from Ibarra came to help us beat back the jungle around our house in Rio Verde (we killed two venomous snakes that weekend!) Praise the Lord for safety as we worked and for good fellowship.
The Andersons are off to a good start getting settled here in Ecuador. They joined us in AwaLand for a recent weekend, and it was good to have our whole team together! Pray for them to find His grace sufficient as cultural and language transitions are not easy.
We already have had the opportunity to join in on a couple of Old Testament translation sessions going over verses in Joshua – please pray for this important work!

A Massive Invasion!

We do need to report to you an invasion of sorts here in Rio Verde. (‘Of sorts’ because this does happen here every year!) Overnight our yard was filled with little holes in the ground. A little digging uncovers the culprit, a new queen leaf-cutter ant. The Awa call the ant an ittal or kukim. These are prized tasty treats to the so-inclined. I dug up some, but I’m not very skilled at it, nor am I so thrilled to eat them. (Although I have before!) So we invited our neighbor boys to come help us get rid of them. When the boys were done their treasure hunt, we offered them as many as they wanted to snack on. Jhonatan said, “Oh, I have plenty!” as he showed us a pocketful. As you can imagine, a large colony of leaf-cutter ants is quite unneighborly to our garden…. snipping off the leaves of all our treasured plants! Thus, it is advantageous to get rid of them, even if you don’t find them particularly tasty. 😉  (BTW our chickens love them!)

We pray that the gospel message will become as invasive and highly prized among the Awa around us as the leaf-cutter queen ants are! Thank you for your support and prayers!

In His grip,

Kevin & Kathy